her to be here, either. It was one thing to have great sex, as often as possible, but it was another thing entirely to start making plans together.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But thanks for thinking of us.”
Charlotte started to say more then shrugged. “Fine. But if you change your mind, the offer is still there.”
She kissed them both goodbye then left, letting in a blast of chilly air before the door closed behind her.
Maddy found herself focusing on the hem of her sweater, fiddling with a stray thread there rather than risking eye contact with Max. She was hurt by Max’s easy rejection of his sister’s offer. Was he so certain she would be gone from his life by summer?
Even as the thought circled her mind, Maddy kicked herself. She couldn’t hang around Max’s apartment, existing on the fringes of his life for six months, even if he wanted her to. She had her own life to live—whatever that might turn out to be.
“If you keep picking at that, it’s going to fall apart.”
She glanced up to find Max standing close to her, his gray eyes unreadable.
“I know.” She released her grip on her sweater.
Something of what she’d been thinking must have shown on her face, because he cocked his head to one side as he studied her.
“You didn’t want to go to Côte d’Azur, did you?” he asked lightly.
“Of course not. It’s ages away. I’ll probably be teaching Pilates at Bondi Beach by then,” she said.
There was a small pause before he smiled. “I thought you were going to be a personal trainer.”
Over the weeks, they’d made a game out of cycling through the various professions most dancers wound up in once they’d retired. So far, they’d toyed with Maddy becoming a ballet mistress, an arts administrator and a personal trainer.
“That’s so last week,” she said with mock disdain.
The moment of odd tension was gone as they bantered back and forth. Max helped her into her coat and she wound his scarf around his neck, ensuring he’d be well protected from the wind.
Hats and gloves on, they walked to Rue de Rivoli, stopping along the way to buy a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese and a bag of grapes. Max led her to what had become her favorite picnic place, the small park at the very tip of the Isle de la Cité, the home of Notre Dame. Despite the fact that the garden had been reduced to a bunch of twigs sticking out of gravel at this time of year, Maddy loved it and dragged Max to it as often as possible.
“It’s a terrible cliché, coming here, you know,” he told her as they sat on a bench and tore their bread into chunks. “Perhaps the most clichéd picnic venue in Paris.”
“I don’t care. It’s close to the river. I don’t know what it is about the Seine, but it makes me feel good whenever I see it,” she said. She raised her face to the sun and closed her eyes, savoring the weak warmth.
“Are you homesick?” he asked quietly. “Winter in Sydney’s nothing like this.”
Maddy considered the question as she smeared Camembert on her bread.
“I miss the light from home, if that makes sense. It’s so bright and clear in Australia. I can see why the Impressionists went crazy with all that hazy, dazy light in their paintings over here in Europe. Everything is much softer, gentler.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “I have photographs from when I was living in Sydney. They’re so bright they almost hurt my eyes.”
She smiled, then saw he had bread crumbs caught in his scarf. For some reason, seeing him sitting there wearing his so-phisticated scarf and superbly tailored coat and Italian shoes with crumbs down his front made her heart squeeze in her chest. How could a man be so devastatingly attractive yet so boyishly appealing at the same time? Suddenly she remembered something one of Max’s girlfriends from long ago had once said to her. “It’s not his good looks or his body or how smart he is that really gets me. It’s those gray eyes of his. They always look as though they’re about to laugh at me.”
Maddy realized she was staring and forced herself to look away.
This is a fling, Maddy. Don’t go getting ideas. Remember your track record with men.
But Max wasn’t like any of the other men she’d slept with. He understood her. He knew her. They knew each other. And she no longer had to share her time between dance and the man in her life. Max could have her night and day, week in, week out. If he wanted her.
Maddy gazed out at the river. She knew what a psychologist would say she was doing—using this thing with Max to divert herself from the hole dancing had left in her life. Max distracted her with sightseeing and gastronomic indulgences, and she rounded the job off by fixating on what was happening between them, building it up into something it probably wasn’t, and probably never should be.
It wasn’t fair to Max that she latch onto him to stop herself from going under. He deserved a hell of a lot more than that.
Beside her, Max crumpled the empty bread wrapper into a ball.
“Come on. Art awaits,” he said, standing and holding out a hand.
She let him pull her to her feet. He was an amazing man. The best. And she had to be careful not to abuse his generosity and kindness by overstaying her welcome. She had to make sure she left before the sex palled and she became a burden instead of a friend in need.
Max tucked her arm through his and led her off the island and onto the left bank. As they walked, he pointed out his favorite buildings and told her a little about their histories. Being Paris, the stories were all colorful and drenched in blood and revolution.
She let herself be wrapped in his warm charm. It was wrong to lean on him so much, but right now she wasn’t quite sure how to stand on her own two feet. Soon, she would find a way to be strong again.
The Musée Rodin was in a stately old mansion with spacious, highly manicured grounds. Like so much of Paris, it was beautiful and elegant and Maddy looked around admiringly as Max bought their tickets.
He grew quiet as they walked into the first room. He stopped in front of each sculpture, no matter how small, his eyes caressing the curves and planes Rodin had created.
“This is like a church for you, isn’t it?” she said quietly after they’d toured the ground floor and were climbing the stairs to the second level.
“He changed the world,” he said simply. “Breathed life into sculpture again.”
Finally they wound up out in the gardens, standing in front of two enormous cast bronze doors; the entire surface of them was writhing with figures, animal and beast, bursting from the surface into three dimensions. Torsos twisted, arms lifted beseechingly, legs flailed in torment. Appropriate, given the piece was titled The Gates of Hell.
Maddy’s eyes were wide with awe as she cataloged the detail, the sheer breadth and scope of the work.
“This is…amazing,” she said.
